Why aren’t there salmon in Salmon Brook?

Perhaps you are wondering why there are no salmon in Aroostook County’s Salmon Brook, a tributary of the Aroostook River which once sported lots and lots of Atlantic salmon. Well, wonder no more.

Cast your line here, for two interesting articles about this issue, written by Lloyd Irland, a forestry consultant who lives in Wayne.

From clear cuts to pollution to food processing plants to dams, the story is not a good one. And in the mid to late 1800s, tributaries were turned into sluiceways for logs, ruining fish spawning habitat. But a highly regarded fisheries biologist argues this can all be fixed.

In his second article, Cleaning up the Aroostook, Lloyd tackles some of the difficult issues with restoring salmon habitat on the Aroostook River. One difficulty is getting cooperation from landowners and farmers.

Lloyd concludes,“There are no single pipes to fix, instead a multitude of small local projects, and field by field improvements in farm practice. None will make much difference individually until enough of them have been done to repair the tributaries.”

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.